


If You Only Knew

by FollowTheFirefly



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollowTheFirefly/pseuds/FollowTheFirefly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Edward asks Mary some interesting questions after a night of drinking and she wants to nothing more than to answer them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Only Knew

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually just finished the game a few days ago (I knew about Mary's historical death, so I was expecting it- doesn't mean that it was any less upsetting), but I started writing this shortly after memory sequence five (I feel like I'm the only person who could tell that James was actually a woman). That being said, this is my first fic for this series so I hope it's not too bad.

She knew he’d ask her why she didn’t go swimming with him after they stumbled out of the tavern well past midnight. Well, he stumbled. She hadn’t had as much to drink as Edward did so she was only tripping over her feet a little bit and that could quite possibly be the result of her being awake for over twenty-four hours straight (no thanks to Rackham for that), whereas Edward ended up running into tables and chairs, slurring his words to the point where Mary could hardly recognize them and falling completely down a flight of stairs. Then again, Mary had always figured that she could hold her alcohol better than him and this was just one more instance to prove it. Fortunately, it seemed that in the few hours since they’d reached the beach, they’d both sobered up a little bit. Not that he would remember his drunken antics the next morning, anyway.

And it wasn’t the first time he had asked her that question when she refused to go swimming with him. In all honesty, she wanted nothing more than to jump in with him and to tread the water for a while. It was an impossibility for her with the way things were now, of course, but it was nice for her to imagine it just the same.

So she wasn’t surprised that he heard him calling for her as he floated on his back in the water, staring at the starless sky above him while she stood around the nearby fire pit, drumming her fingers on one of the bottles of wine that she had brought from the tavern. She’d have to hear an earful from Anne the next day when she discovered that it was missing from the tavern, but that was something she’d worry about in the morning.

“Oi, Kidd!”

She was quite astonished that a man who had as much to drink as Edward could even stand, let alone swim. She tried tuning him out, her eyes fixated on the fire in fire in front of her, but he kept shouting her name- well, Kidd’s name, to be more precise.

“Jaysus, Edward, what is it?” Mary shouted back eventually, growing tired of hearing him shouting over and over again.

“Why don’t you ever go swimming?” Edward was apparently expecting to have to shout for her again, as his response was a little too loud.

“Shut up before Anne comes out and does it for ya,” Mary hissed, knowing how Anne handled the patrons of the bar when they got too rowdy. “An’ why are you askin’ about that, of all things?”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Edward whisper-shouted, turning around so he was properly facing Mary.

“How ‘bout because I don’t feel like it?” she responded, watching him as he slowly swam up to the beach. “An’ how the fuck are ya still able to swim when you’ve drunk so much?”

“Kidd, you say that every time,” he apparently hadn’t heard her last question.

“Ya don’ sound as piss-drunk as you did earlier, Kenway,” Mary observed, noting that his slurred speech was gone. “Maybe tha’ swim did ya some good after all.”

“Just wish you could’ve joined me, is all,” Edward reached where Mary was standing, drawing lines in the sand with her bare feet, which he seemed to notice. “Where’d your boots go?”

“Kicked ‘em off a while ago,” she said with a shrug, turning her back to him and walking to the fire. “An’ don’t most men find it a bit odd to swim naked with other men?”

“But I’m not naked,” Edward tugged at the sopping wet trousers he was wearing.

“But ya usually are,” Mary retorted, cracking her neck back and forth. “I saw you an’ Thatch one night a few weeks ago.”

“I didn’t think anyone had seen that,” Edward was clearly embarrassed by this, as his ears turned a faint shade of pink.

“I'm fairly sure all of Nassau heard ya too, mate,” she cracked a smile at the memory as she sat down on the sand, leaning her back against a nearby log that had washed ashore. “You lot were singin’ those awful shanties ‘o yours until the sun came up.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Edward had apparently forgotten about the antics of that night. “But that doesn’t explain why you won’t swim with us.”

“It really ain’t that big of a deal,” Mary crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I just don’t feel like swimmin’.”

“Ever?” Edward walked over and sat down next to her.

“Not all of us want to spend every wakin’ moment in the water, Kenway,” she told him, her eyes watching the flames in front of her as she took a swig from the bottle of wine in her hand. “I'm not a dog, ya know.”

“Got any more of that?” Edward gestured to the wine.

“Right next to ya,” Mary nodded towards it.

Edward looked around for the wine, which was right next to him. He kept one to himself and tossed the other to Mary, who caught it with one hand.

“And another thing,” he appeared to have more points to discuss with her.

“Still flappin’ those gum of yours?” Mary rolled her eyes, remembering how much Edward liked to talk when he drank.

“Why don’t you ever take your clothes off?” Edward asked, a bit more bluntly than Mary had expected him to.

“What did ya just say?” Mary couldn’t quite believe she was hearing this from him and her face turned bright red.

“It’s always hot and yet you’re always wearing that coat of yours,” Edward twitched his right leg up and down.

“Aye…” Mary said slowly.

“And it gets mighty warm, doesn’t it?” she knew Edward knew the answer to his question.

“Aye, it does…” She repeated, not sure where he was going with this line of conversation.

“So why don’t you take off a few layers?” Edward said before drinking some of the wine.

“What, an’ run around stark bollock naked like you when you’ve ‘ad too much to drink?” Mary arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t think I need to see that much of you, Kidd,” Edward shook his head, though he had a smile on his face. “Although…”

“What is it now, Kenway?” Mary wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what he was thinking.

“No, nothing,” Edward shook his head.

“Spit it out,” she was growing quite tired of beating around the bush with him.

“Well, I was just talking to Rackham and Thatch the other day-” Edward began.

“A dangerous thing to do,” Mary smiled, knowing that her comment would annoy him.

“You know that’s not it, Kidd,” Edward glared at her as he attempted to sit up straighter.

“Go on, then,” she said, reaching her hands back so that she had her fingers laced back behind her head. “Wha’ were you lot talkin’ about?”

“Rackham just mentioned that he’s never exactly seen you, well, you know,” Mary wasn’t used to seeing Edward so embarrassed and it was making her feel a little nervous. “And Thatch and I realized it, too.”

“If ya don’t start making some fuckin’ sense, I’m gonna ‘ave to smack ya around until you do,” Mary said as she shifted her feet a little bit in the sand.

“I mean, we’ve just never seen you in the company of a woman, Kidd,” Edward said, refusing to look at her for some reason. “And some are starting to question a few things.”

“Have you ever thought that I might not have found one that suits my fancy?” she said, a bit more playfully than she intended, before she drank some more of the wine from the bottle in her hand.

“None on this island?” Edward didn’t seem to believe her as he downed the rest of the bottle of wine and attempted to throw it into the fire pit, but missed quite badly and sent it flying into the ocean. “Or on any island, for that matter?”

“Do ya even have a point with this, mate?” Mary asked with a sigh, growing tired of the present conversation.

“Well, Thatch and I had been considering that you might not even take a fancy to girls at all, if you catch my drift,” Edward stretched his arms out in front of his chest, his fingers cracking loudly.

“An’ what about you?” Mary asked, turning the tables on the conversation. “I've not seen you in the company of a woman the whole time I’ve known ya.”

“You know full well about Caroline, Kidd,” Edward said and Mary noticed a hint of sadness present in his voice, as well as anger that made her regret that she even brought up his estranged wife.

“That’s beside the point,” she turned so that she was facing him properly. “You know I've seen ya watchin’ me, Kenway,”

“It’s a bit hard to have a conversation with someone when you aren’t looking at them, you know,” Edward said as he absentmindedly threw some nearby seashells into the fire pit.

“Not what I mean,” Mary shook her head, stray bits of dark hair falling in her eyes that she brushed away with her hand. “You know exactly wha’ I’m getting at.”

After a few seconds of silence between the two of them, Edward sighed in defeat.

“Gotcha,” she grinned at him, knowing that she had him cornered.

“Not that it really matters,” Edward was trying quite hard to pretend that he wasn’t embarrassed, so Mary pretended that she didn’t notice.

“No, of course not,” she shook her head.

“You know, Kidd, things would be quite a bit easier if you were a woman, right?” he said with a sigh.

She almost told him. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell him because he was Edward and she thought that he would be okay with it, or because it’s what she wanted to do. She had actually thought about it for quite some time before, wondering if it would change things between them. And Edward was drunk enough that she might get lucky and he wouldn’t remember her confession the next morning.

Mary was about to mention it but as soon as she opened her mouth to speak, she stopped. It wouldn’t make things any easier for them, so why go and ruin what they already had? No, she would wait, wait for another time, another place, when they were both sober and she was sure that it wasn’t the alcohol making her want to tell him.

So instead she shook her head, as Edward was staring at her in a confused manner, and chose to say nothing.

 _If ya only knew, Kenway_ , she thought to herself, _If ya only knew._


End file.
